Police lot gives way to affordable housing in Midtown

The city’s Economic Development Corp. in early May tapped Radson Development and Kingspoint Heights Development to turn a New York Police Department parking lot in Midtown West into a nearly 500-foot tower with 234 apartments, 200,000 square feet of office space, 80,000 square feet of dorms and a 12,000-square-foot grocery store.

All the apartments will be designated as affordable, a requirement supported by the community board and local City Councilman Corey Johnson. The development will also include a parking facility for the NYPD.

Radson and Kingspoint Heights are expected to break ground on the lot, between 11th and 12th avenues and the Javits Center and West 40th Street, in 2019 and finish in 2022. The development is part of a wave of projects being undertaken north of the convention center. Two major projects either recently opened or are planned just to the northeast, between 10th and 11th avenues and West 40th and West 41st streets. Javits’ eastern and southern borders are also seeing brisk development, including a Starwood hotel just east of 11th Avenue and Hudson Yards to the south.

The project at 495 11th Ave. is the second conversion of an NYPD lot into affordable housing announced this year. In January EDC tapped another developer to remake a Jamaica, Queens, facility into a mixed-use building with 350 units, all of which are designated as affordable.

The NYPD also has a tow pound nearby, on Pier 76. The city is looking for a new location for it. When it finds one, the parcel will become part of Hudson River Park.

Last year the Hudson River Park Trust, which operates Pier 76, selected Classic Car Club Manhattan to occupy the pier’s southern portion under a nine-year permit. That parcel—which an NYPD mounted unit occupied until 2014—is meant to generate revenue for the park. A longer-term tenant could take over that revenue-generating role should the pier revert to the park.

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